Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Six Further Controversial Bible Verses Are Tackled by a Believer

Jeff Sanders treates us to a further Six Controversial Bible Verses the Skeptics Love to Hate (thanks to brother Ed Driscoll). Here is one of the six:

Should you cut your hands off or pluck your eyes out if you sin? (Matthew 5:29-30)

Jesus uses pretty strong language
here, commanding His disciples to pluck out their eyes or to cut off
their hands if those parts of the body cause them to sin. But no, Jesus
is not commanding self-mutilation. Nowhere do any of His disciples ever
do this, and the cause of sin is not the eye or the hand. We sin because
of what is going on inside us, in our minds (which Jesus is careful to
point out in all four Gospels).

Jesus is just using normal
everyday hyperbole to get his point across. We exaggerate often ("I've
told you a million times to stop!"). Here He is merely telling His
people in rather charged language to do whatever it takes to stay away
from sin. Sin has extreme consequences, so go to extremes to stay away
from it.